For wind ensembles and concertos, please use one player per part. For symphonies and concert pieces, more players may be used as desired. David’s full statement.

Movements

Overture – All Creatures of Our God and King

Seeking

Brooding March

As you proceed to your certain end, what is the point of being alive?

A hard thought that turns out all right

A sweet tune

All Creatures of Our God and King

Commissioned by

the Sacred Winds Ensemble, Scott Bersaglia, Artistic Director and Conductor, on the occasion of its tenth anniversary.

Completion

6 April, 2007 Missoula, Montana

Description

Unending Stream of Life is a set of seven “songs” for wind ensemble, each embodying the original tune, or relating to it in some way. The “Overture” borrows Vaughan Williams’ harmonization of this grand old melody, and this is paralleled with my own harmonization at the end of the piece. Elements of light and dark intertwine in this music which is written at the level of a good high school band.

Program note

Scott Bersaglia, conductor of the Sacred Winds Ensemble, asked me to write a piece in honor of the tenth anniversary of the group. This commission reads: “The new work will be a minimum of five minutes in duration…oriented around a sacred theme to be chosen by the composer.” Scott offered me a selection of hymn tunes, and All Creatures of Our God and King just stood out above all the others. It is a good tune and it inspired a whole lot of musical thought in me. The result is a good deal longer than five minutes! It is a set of seven “songs” for wind ensemble, each embodying the original tune, or relating to it in some way. This old melody, All Creatures of Our God and King, is large in spirit, and the harmonization by Ralph Vaughn Williams, which I have adopted in the Overture, is full-bodied and wonderfully satisfying.

All things of light are paralleled and powered by an element of darkness, and my variations, particularly two through five, probe in that direction. Darkness here means awareness of a deep mystery in the universe, and of the struggles that all endure in this life.

The title, “Unending Stream of Life”, comes from the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and prolific author on Buddhist subjects, Thich Nhat Hanh. One statement of his stayed with me throughout the composition of this piece: “We are life. We are inextinguishable!”

Program note by David Maslanka

Further Reading

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s compositions that focus on the spirit of life and living: Unending Stream of Life, Traveler, and “Movement 4” from A Child's Garden of Dreams.

Maslanka Weekly highlights excellent performances of David Maslanka’s music from around the web. This week, we feature three of David’s compositions that have the special quality of "seeking" or "searching" for something: The Seeker, Desert Roads, and Unending Stream of Life.

This is Scott Hippensteel's excellent dissertation from 2011 on Unending Stream of Life. He situates David's music in wind ensemble literature, discusses his style, and expertly analyses the piece itself. His recommendations for conductors preparing [...]